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American Public Media

"Truth Be Told: Time to Thrive" revisits nine of host Tonya Mosley's favorite episodes, exploring crucial topics that resonate deeply with our current times. From challenging societal norms around rest and productivity to addressing the impacts of deportation, racial trauma, and body image, this collection offers profound insights and conversations with thought leaders, activists, and experts. Each episode provides a unique perspective on personal growth, social justice, and the pursuit of a more equitable world, inviting listeners to reflect, learn, and ultimately thrive.

Truth Be Told Presents: She Has A Name

Truth Be Told: Time To Thrive

Every new year, we play the same game, compiling a list of resolutions to be more productive, pushing ourselves to the limit to attain some version of ourselves that will be better than the last. This year, host Tonya Mosley is taking a different approach. Instead of giving more to the world, she plans to give more to myself. And that starts with revisiting this powerful 2022 conversation with Nap Ministry founder Tricia Hersey. Hersey says it’s time we treat our bodies not as hustle machines but as living, divine beings that need rest. 

GUEST: Tricia Hersey, Author and Founder of The Nap Ministry
INSTAGRAM: @thenapministry

LINKS:
deartbt.com
Instagram: deartbt
TikTok: tonyatbt
Email: tonya@deartbt.com

Rest Is Resistance

In 2020, Truth Be Told producer Isa Mendoza shared her truth about the painful impact her father’s deportation has had on her life. We are revisiting this powerful conversation in light of President-elect Donald Trump’s promise to deport undocumented immigrants who are primarily from Mexico and other South American countries the moment he gets into office. 

For this episode, we called up Adriana Alejandre, a licensed marriage and family therapist (LMFT) and founder of the Latinx Therapy podcast, who offered advice to Isa and tools we can all use to help those we care about who have and will experience family separation. The episode ends with a powerful conversation between Isa and her father. 

A heartfelt thank you to Isa for sharing her story with us. 

GUESTS: 
Isa Mendoza
Adriana Alejandre, licensed marriage and family therapist and founder of Latinx Therapy podcast INSTAGRAM: @latinxtherapy

LINKS:
deartbt.com
Instagram: deartbt
TikTok: tonyatbt
Email: tonya@deartbt.com

Deportation Wounds

What are the words - when there are no words?
In the face of violence, death, and heartbreak, we revisit minister and writer Danté Stewart’s 2022 conversation about what he calls “little experiments of liberation.”

GUEST:
Danté Stewart, minister, writer, and author of Shoutin’ Into The Fire: An American Epistle. 
INSTAGRAM: @stewartdantec

LINKS:
deartbt.com
Instagram: deartbt
TikTok: tonyatbt
Email: tonya@deartbt.com

Numb

We’re talking about therapy a lot more than we were when we taped this episode five years ago, but there’s still a lot more to talk about. Black men are still four times more likely to die by suicide than Black women. This week’s episode revisits our powerful 2020 conversation that delves into this question: 

Why is therapy so taboo in the black community, especially amongst black men?

Poet and writer Prentice Powell kicks off the episode by performing a poem he wrote in 2014 after the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. 

GUESTS:
Karamo Brown — Talk show host and host of Netflix’s Queer Eye.
Bakari Sellers — attorney, politician and author of “My Vanishing Country: A Memoir”
Ron Finley — artist, designer and gangsta gardener

INSTAGRAM: 
@karamo
@bakarisellers 
@ronfinleyproject 

LINKS:
deartbt.com
Instagram: deartbt
TikTok: tonyatbt
Email: tonya@deartbt.com

You’re OK, I’m Not. Black Men & Therapy

As of the reairing of this episode, 13 states in the US have a total abortion ban. 7 states ban abortion at or before 18 weeks' gestation. 21 states ban abortion at some point after 18 weeks.

In the weeks before the Supreme Court overturned Roe V. Wade, we sat down to talk about what body autonomy and reproductive health will look like for us in a post-Roe vs. Wade world. The stress of racism and barriers to care–including abortion care–are part of a downward spiral in reproductive justice. Too often, those stressors play out in our wombs as fibroids and cancers. We talk about seeking justice and liberation with our guests.

GUESTS:

Anoa Changa, journalist and writer of “What’s Next for Roe v. Wade?”
Dr. Ashley Davis, Gynecologic Specialist at the Fibroid and Pelvic Wellness Center of Georgia
Omisade Burney-Scott, healer and host of Black Girl’s Guide to Surviving Menopause

INSTAGRAM: 
@thewaywithanoa
@ashleydavis_md 
@omisadeburneyscott

LINKS:
deartbt.com
Instagram: deartbt
TikTok: tonyatbt
Email: tonya@deartbt.com

The Womb

Trauma is a word we throw around so often these days it has lost its meaning. Healer, trauma specialist, and author Resmaa Menakem reorients our understanding of complex trauma, how it manifests in our body and how to move through it to move beyond it.

GUEST:
Chef Kristi Brown, co-owner of Communion
Resmaa Menakem, somatic therapist, author of the new book The Quaking of America
INSTAGRAM:
@thatbrowngirlcooks 
@resmaamenakem 

LINKS:
deartbt.com
Instagram: deartbt
TikTok: tonyatbt
Email: tonya@deartbt.com

The Body

How do we raise Black children who feel free? One way, conscious parenting coach Yolanda Williams says, is for caregivers to face their own childhood trauma. 

Yolanda sat down with host Tonya Mosley in 2022 to offer some actionable tips on how to raise “free-thinking Black children” - and stop the tradition of spanking as a form of discipline. We gained so much insight from Yolanda in this episode, and you will, too. 

GUEST:
Yolanda Williams, Parenting Decolonized 

INSTAGRAM:
@prntgdcolonized

LINKS:
deartbt.com
Instagram: deartbt
TikTok: tonyatbt
Email: tonya@deartbt.com

Protection

Ozempic and other weight loss drugs have opened up a new conversation about our nation’s obsession with thinness. This episode from 2022 delves into our nation’s refusal to acknowledge that the ideal, at its core, is racist. How do we get beyond the belief that bigger Black bodies are a problem? And instead, allow ourselves, no matter what size, to take up space?

GUESTS:
Sabrina Strings, Ph.D., scholar and author of Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia.
Carvell Wallace, author and memoirist.
Mozell Ward, trainer at Radically Fit.

INSTAGRAM:
@carvell_wallace

LINKS:
deartbt.com
Instagram: deartbt
TikTok: tonyatbt
Email: tonya@deartbt.com

Phat/Fat

One of the highlights of this show was having the late famed poet Nikki Giovanni on as a guest. It felt like we were all sitting at the dining room table, soaking up her wisdom. 
Giovanni tackled a challenging and important question: what do you do as a nonbinary person if the place that made you doesn’t exactly accept who you are?
That dilemma came from our former editor, CMD+JAZMINE, who explores their identity and faith with Giovanni. In this conversation, Giovanni shares some of her most intimate truths with CMD+JAZMINE, including her challenges with the institution of the Black church.

GUESTS:
CMD+JAZMINE
Nikki Giovanni

LINKS:
deartbt.com
Instagram: deartbt
TikTok: tonyatbt
Email: tonya@deartbt.com

Unwavering Love

"How are Black Americans expected to overcome and thrive in this country without the necessary mechanisms of healing?" Tonya called on the help of two Wise Ones for this question. Ibram X. Kendi gives helpful framing on how to even start thinking about this and Kiese Laymon offers a dive deep into Black healing in America.
Episode transcript here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zf9nr4xXdA1BpIVXY7ZaK7Wh13Qlx309/view

Healing for Black America

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